After a serious collision, the damaged vehicle can become an afterthought.
The injured person may be at the hospital. Family members are trying to figure out what happened. Insurance companies are calling. Transportation suddenly becomes a problem.
Somewhere in the middle of all of that, the vehicle may be sitting in a tow yard accumulating storage charges.
I care about where that vehicle is for another reason, too: the vehicle itself may still tell us something about the collision.
That does not mean every damaged car needs to sit untouched for months. It means I do not want an important piece of the case destroyed, repaired, transferred, or disposed of before anyone has stopped to ask whether it needs to be inspected.
First Question: Where Is the Vehicle?
After a serious crash, determine where the vehicle was taken.
That sounds obvious, but it is surprisingly easy for this information to get lost when someone leaves the scene by ambulance.
The vehicle may have been taken to:
- A municipal lot
- A private towing company
- A repair facility
- An insurance company's facility
- Another storage location
I want the basic information:
- Where is the vehicle?
- Who has possession of it?
- What is its current condition?
- Has an insurance company inspected it?
- Has anyone authorized repairs or disposal?
- Are personal belongings still inside?
Those questions become more important when the collision involves a serious injury.
Do Not Treat the Vehicle as Only a Property-Damage Problem
If a car is obviously totaled, the natural reaction is simple: get the property claim resolved and move on.
Sometimes that is perfectly appropriate.
But before a seriously damaged vehicle disappears, I want to know whether there is any reason it should first be documented or inspected.
Imagine a side-impact collision where the parties disagree about the angle of impact. The crush pattern, damaged components, photographs, or information associated with the vehicle may become relevant to understanding what happened.
That does not mean the vehicle automatically proves one side's version of events.
It means I do not want to learn three months later that someone wanted to inspect it only after it had already been destroyed.
What About the Belongings Inside the Car?
This is another practical issue people often forget.
The vehicle may still contain:
- Medication
- Children's car seats
- Work equipment
- Eyeglasses
- A laptop
- Identification
- Personal documents
If you need property from the vehicle, contact the facility and determine what is required to retrieve it.
However, if something inside the vehicle may itself be relevant to the collision, do not alter or discard it simply because you want to clean everything out.
Again, the goal is not to turn an injured person into an evidence technician.
The goal is to avoid making an irreversible decision while everyone is still operating in crisis mode.
What About Storage Charges?
Tow-yard and storage charges can add up quickly.
That is why these issues should not simply be ignored. Someone needs to determine what the property insurer is doing with the vehicle, whether an inspection has occurred, and what needs to happen next.
Preserving a vehicle does not mean allowing storage charges to grow indefinitely without a plan.
The important thing is coordination.
If the vehicle needs to be inspected, deal with that issue. If it does not, move the property claim forward.
What I want to avoid is the worst combination: substantial storage charges and no preservation plan at all.
What If the Insurance Company Wants You to Sign the Vehicle Over?
Understand what you are signing.
A routine property-damage transaction and a serious bodily-injury case are not necessarily the same thing.
Before transferring title, authorizing destruction, or signing paperwork that gives someone control over the vehicle, I want to know whether anybody still has a legitimate reason to inspect it.
The answer may be no.
But that decision should be made intentionally.
The Damaged Vehicle May Be One of the First Practical Problems After a Crash
After a serious collision, people understandably focus on the injuries. - They should.
But meanwhile, the vehicle is sitting somewhere.
When I become involved early, one of the practical questions I want answered is simply:
Where is the car, and do we need anything from it before it is gone?
That question takes a few minutes to ask.
It can be impossible to answer after the vehicle has already been destroyed.
Injured in a Serious Illinois Crash?
If you or a family member has been seriously injured in an Illinois crash and the vehicle has been towed, Duran Law Offices can help determine what needs immediate attention and what can wait.
Call 312-300-0473.